by Dan Poblocki
“Let’s go,” Poppy whispered. “Before the house starts to mess with us.”
“It’s already started,” said Dash flatly.
They gathered together and walked slowly through the skinny passage, listening for sounds in the dark. Ahead, the flashlight glinted off one of the walls. There was a small copper plaque that had been screwed into the black brick. Something was engraved on it.
Consolida Caldwell.
Ice flooded Poppy’s spine.
“Why’s your cousin’s name posted down here?” Azumi asked.
Poppy ran her fingers along the wall. She had a sense of what was behind the bricks, but she was too frightened to say it.
Several feet farther down the corridor was another copper tag. This one read: Eugenia Caldwell.
“Connie’s mother,” said Poppy.
On the next tag was Frederick Caldwell. The painter who’d made the pact with the shadow creature.
“I don’t understand,” said Dash. “What kind of game is the house playing now?”
“I don’t know,” said Poppy, her voice shaking.
They came to more copper plates. More names.
Gage Vogel.
Sybil Simonov.
Eliza Turner.
James Han.
Orion Robideaux.
She refused to tell Dash and Azumi that these were Cyrus’s first orphans—the ones who had drowned during a boat accident on the Hudson River in the thirties. She didn’t want to scare them.
A quiet hum murmured through the passages. Poppy tried to walk more quickly, but Dash and Azumi kept slowing, and she didn’t dare ask Dash to keep up. He read out more names. Some seemed familiar, but others were not.
Javier & Philip Zullo.
Angelo & Beryl Fox.
Verity Reese.
Saul Barron.
“Didn’t Cyrus write something about Larkspur having a crypt?” asked Dash, stepping over to the center of the corridor.
Azumi blanched, pulling her fingertips away from one of the markers.
They came to a section of red brick that looked newer than the rest, like a doorway that had been recently sealed. A few feet beyond this patch, four other dark openings appeared to be waiting for the same treatment. Dash shone his light inside the first.
It was small, no bigger than the square-shaped closet that Poppy had shared with Ashley back at Thursday’s Hope.
While Azumi and Dash peered into the other spaces, Poppy noticed the name on the copper tag screwed into the new brick in front of her. Her jaw dropped, and she gasped, falling back before catching herself on the opposite wall.
“What is it?” asked Azumi. “What’s wrong?”
Poppy could only point. She closed her eyes when Dash and Azumi cried out in shock.
The name carved into the shining metal plaque was Marcus Geller.
MARCUS IS DEAD because of you, Azumi, just like Moriko this is all your fault your fault your fault this is YOUR FAULT YOUR—
Azumi bit down on her tongue, tearing her gaze away from the marking on the wall. She choked out a sob as she stood closer to the others.
“Is Marcus in there?” Dash asked, his voice reverberating throughout the passage.
Poppy shook her head. “It’s all part of the game. The house want us to—”
A pounding came from the wall with Marcus’s name. The three yelped and then clung to one another, watching as dust rained from the arched stone ceiling.
After a moment, Azumi cried out, “He’s alive! We have to get him out of there!” She stepped toward the plaque, but Poppy yanked on the back of her denim jacket, holding her still.
Boom, boom, boom!
“That’s not him,” Poppy whispered. “We need to keep moving.”
Azumi’s eyes grew in surprise. “But what if—”
“Poppy’s right,” said Dash. “We all saw what the creature did to him. Marcus wasn’t breathing when we left him.”
“Well, then, maybe we shouldn’t have left him!” Azumi cried out. “Maybe we should have stayed with him till he woke up! The creature must have brought him here while we were wandering around outside.” She focused on the wall, on his name. “Marcus!” she called out. “Marcus! Can you hear me?!” The pounding was faster now. Boom, boom, boom!
She glanced at Poppy and Dash. “I think that means yes. We’ve got to find something to smash—”
Dash took her elbow and pulled her away from Marcus’s plaque. His force surprised her so much that she didn’t even think to fight back. Before she knew it, he’d tugged her past the other four dark openings. Poppy followed a little way behind them.
One, two, three, four. A space for each of the house’s most recent guests. It had made room in its crypt for them.
Azumi was breathing quickly. Her lungs felt too small.
YOUR FAULT AZUMI YOUR FAULT
“We have to stay focused,” said Dash, releasing her arm.
“No!” Azumi cried out. “I won’t believe it. I won’t! He’s alive! He has to be alive. Because if he’s not, that means I helped kill him!”
JUST LIKE YOU KILLED MORIKO
“I want to wake up!” Azumi shrieked. “Please, just let me wake up!”
Poppy closed her arms around Azumi, squeezing her tight. Azumi stiffened, but a second later she slumped into Poppy, suddenly sobbing. The tears flowed, wetting her cheeks, until her skin hurt. Somehow, in Poppy’s embrace, the voice in her head went quiet. When Poppy started to pull away, Azumi grabbed her and held on. “Okay,” she whispered into Poppy’s collarbone. “I’ll try to focus. But I need you guys to help me. I … I’m not okay.”
“None of us are okay,” said Poppy.
Azumi looked into her eyes. “I think I might be a little worse than you. I think the house knows it’s about to break me too.”
Dash rubbed her shoulder. “Azumi, I was in a psych ward until a couple days ago. My dead brother has been following me around for a month. I can relate. Stay strong. You won’t break.”
Azumi smiled. She wasn’t sure if Dash was trying to be funny, but the whole situation suddenly seemed like a comedy. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen to kids. Kids weren’t supposed to know what it felt like to be terrified. That was for the world of grown-ups. Adults always tried so hard to keep scary things away from young people. Maybe if young people were allowed to know what fear felt like, all of this would have been easier. Maybe her nightmares would’ve gone away. Maybe the sleepwalking would’ve ended.
“It’ll be easier if you two stop arguing,” she said. “I feel like the house wants to get me out of the way so it can tear you guys apart. Maybe … Maybe we all need to be stronger.”
YOUR FAULT YOUR—
She took Poppy’s hand. The voice stopped again. And Azumi inhaled a deep breath. The fullest gulp of air she’d taken since stepping foot onto the Larkspur estate. It made her feel calmer, like if she could just hold this group together, she could make this ordeal turn out okay. She suddenly realized that this feeling was something worth fighting for.
THE BLACK CORRIDORS twisted in ways that didn’t seem to make sense. Dash could swear that the left turn several steps back should’ve ended with a wall, yet the passage continued to snake forward—a long rise, a little dip. Every now and again, a sound rang out behind them. It could have been feet shuffling along the dirt floor, or grit falling from the cracks in the ceiling. Whatever the case, Dash used it to keep himself moving, even as the walls seemed to press closer together. Every few feet, they encountered another copper tag with another name. It was as if the entire foundation were filled with bodies.
The girls walked in a short chain behind him as he shone the light ahead, his heart pounding, reminding him of the noise that had been coming from within the bricks with Marcus’s name on them.
Ahead, a glow appeared, a bare bulb caged to the wall beside a doorway. As they came closer, Dash felt his throat dry up. An accordion door was pulled shut, the empty shaft inside crisscrossed w
ith shadow.
Poppy’s voice shook. “Is that the—”
“Elevator,” said Dash. “Sure looks like it.”
The elevator door was a dead end.
“That’s our way up?” Azumi asked.
“The car’s missing,” said Dash. “And I don’t see any button to call it down to us.”
“What if we climb?” said Poppy.
“You know what happened the last time we tried to use this thing,” said Dash. “The Specials found us.”
“What other choice do we have?” Poppy asked.
“Keep wandering around down here?” said Azumi, shaking her head.
No one knew what to say.
Then, from down the dark passage, another shuffling sound echoed out. A scraping noise followed, like nails scratching against the walls. Coming closer. Closer. Quickly now. Any moment, the shroud of shadows would fall away, revealing—
None of them wished to find out what.
They scrambled toward the elevator door. Poppy and Dash grabbed onto it and threw their weight sideways. The door shimmied and then slid several inches.
“Wide enough,” said Poppy, nudging Azumi forward. She glanced over her shoulder at the scraping sound as Dash followed Azumi through the opening. Something was shifting in the shadows. She passed the messenger bag to Dash and then snuck into the shaft. “Now help shut it.” She nodded at the corridor. “Hurry.”
Dash started to glare, but realized it would only hurt him to slow down. They battered at the door until it finally stood as a barrier between themselves and whatever was out there. Dash handed Poppy her bag and then shone his light into the upper reaches of the elevator shaft.
“It’s not as large as I remember,” said Poppy.
“It kept changing size and shape,” said Dash. “Just like the rest of the house.” The walls were made of the same black brick as the twisted corridors outside. There was nothing to hold on to, no bars or cables to climb, only a couple of covered rods that ran vertically into the darkness above.
Poppy held out her arms and touched both sides of the shaft. “But this is good!” She leaned against one wall and raised her foot, pressing against the opposite side. “We can push ourselves up. Like this.” She brought up her other foot and then levered her body across the shaft.
“Poppy, be careful,” said Azumi, worried.
Poppy ignored her. She used her legs to push herself back upward along the wall, walking each foot forward, rising several inches at a time. “Come on, you guys. Try it.”
The thing down the hallway scraped the wall as it continued toward them.
“I feel like a rat in a maze,” Dash whispered, pressing himself up onto the wall beside Poppy. He carried his phone in one hand, bending his elbow so that its light faced upward. “And the scientist is making sure we do exactly what he wants us to do.”
“But you’re okay with this, Dash?” Poppy asked.
“Where else can we go?” he answered with a huff.
The group climbed for a few minutes before the brick walls turned to wire mesh. Darkness surrounded the shaft. A closed doorway appeared. “This must be the first floor,” said Poppy.
“Shouldn’t we just get out?” asked Dash. “We can find our way to the studio through the rest of the house.”
“If it lets us,” said Azumi.
The accordion gate rattled below them, as if something were testing out the strength of its bars.
“Keep going,” said Poppy, staring up the shaft.
“I’m getting out at the next doorway,” Dash said through his teeth. “Follow me or not. I don’t care.”
“We’ll follow you, Dash,” Poppy answered back.
The group had made it about halfway toward the next door, nearly thirty feet from the bottom of the shaft, when the walls began to vibrate.
“What’s that?” Azumi asked. Somewhere nearby, a motor was humming.
Dash focused the flashlight on the metal rods bolted to the wall.
A gear shifted. Metal squealed against metal.
Poppy looked up. “It’s the elevator!” she cried out. “Someone’s sending it down to us!”
“THE NEXT DOOR is closer.” Dash shimmied himself higher. “Come on, you two!”
Poppy couldn’t move. Her feet were going numb. The metal rods running up the walls were starting to rattle, and high above her head, a dim glow shone from the car’s lamp.
Azumi climbed past Poppy and tugged on the strap of her bag. Poppy was jolted back into her body. She followed the others, pressing her soles against the wall and shifting her spine like a snake.
The rattling grew stronger. The smell of grease stung their noses.
Holding steady, Dash was already at work trying to slide the door open. Azumi waited beside him, staring, horrified, up at the car coming down. “Hurry, Dash!”
Poppy’s foot slipped and she slid several inches back down the shaft. The strap of her messenger bag snapped, and Poppy reached down lightning fast, her hand closing on something soft. The bag disappeared into the shadows below. To Poppy’s surprise, she found that she’d grabbed the doll that Connie had been holding in her vision. The cloth doll she’d slipped into the pocket of her pinafore.
How had it gotten into Poppy’s bag?
There was no time! The bottom of the car was only several yards over her head and approaching swiftly.
Crying out, Dash gave the door a shove, and it finally shivered open. He helped Azumi into the house, then held out his hand to Poppy.
“Go!” she shouted, wiggling herself higher. The door was almost in reach. “Don’t wait for me!”
Dash swiveled himself around and then grabbed on to the ledge. One leg up, then the other.
The car kept coming. Dash reached down to her, and Poppy went for his hands. Only a couple of feet left. There wasn’t time. If Dash didn’t retreat, the car would take his arms. Holding herself in place, Poppy shoved him out of the way, then allowed herself to slip down. Maybe there was still time to reach the door below.
But she couldn’t move fast enough. The car was on top of her, blocking Dash’s flashlight so she could hardly see. She smelled oil. The bottom of the car seemed to race toward her face, and Poppy squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for impact.
Should I let go? she wondered. Just fall into the depths of the house?
A deafening scream nearly knocked her over. The voice echoed on and on.
Then everything went quiet.
Poppy waited, every muscle tensed. But nothing happened. Opening her eyes again, she reached up, and her hand hit something hard only inches above her head. The floor of the car.
It had stopped.
The car had stopped!
She was alive!
“Poppy?” Azumi called from somewhere nearby. “Are you there?” Footsteps knocked on the platform just over her. Azumi must have hopped in and flipped the lever.
“I am!” Poppy yelled back, unable to hold in her hysteria. “Get me out of here! Please!”
“Working on it!”
The sound of the shifting gear rang out again. Poppy prayed that Azumi would move the car in the right direction. A moment later, the floor drew upward away from her, and the gap by the ledge opened again. Poppy didn’t wait. She scrambled out of the shaft as quickly as her legs would allow.
Azumi and Dash huddled around her, sobbing and apologizing.
“What are you sorry for?” Poppy managed to ask through her tears. “You guys saved my life.”
It was as if they hadn’t heard her. For the next few seconds, all they said was, “We’re sorry … so sorry … You’re okay … We’re sorry …”
It almost seemed to Poppy like they weren’t even talking to her. Like they were apologizing to someone else. To Dylan? To Moriko?
She squeezed the doll tightly, thankful she hadn’t lost it.
LAMPS FLICKERED TO life all around the room, filling the space with a golden glow.
Poppy gasped, and the others turned to lo
ok. Paintings of landscapes and portraits hung on every wall, filling almost every inch of space. Easels stood in several corners. Blank canvases and half-finished works were propped along the walls. The floor was a mishmash of overlapping rugs, frayed and splattered with color. Wooden boxes were sitting all around, stuffed to their brims with dusty pages and long rolled-up papers, ratty at their edges.
“Frederick’s studio?” said Dash, shocked back into himself. “But how? Why?” He shook his head. “If the house knew this was where we wanted to go, why did it lead us directly here?”
“But it tried really hard to stop us,” said Azumi. “The elevator almost crushed Poppy.”
“Exactly. Almost.”
“Connie,” whispered Poppy, barely hearing the voices of the others. “She’s still helping. Maybe she’s the one who made sure we found our way through the basement. Maybe she’s the one who pointed us to the right door out of the elevator.”
“You’re suggesting that your dead cousin was the one who sent the car down the shaft,” said Dash, aghast.
“Maybe.” Poppy nodded. “Maybe she knew we’d get out in the right place in time. That we’d be safe in the end.”
Dash raised an eyebrow. “So this is the end, is it?”
“Or maybe the house is still trying to kill us,” said Azumi. “Maybe finding this room is another fake-out.”
Poppy shook her head, a smile growing on her face. “No. This room is what everything was leading toward. Connie is here. I can sense her. Can’t you? It’s like … I was meant to come.”
To this room. To Larkspur! This is my house, Poppy thought. Connie and I only need to fix it. End the curse that Frederick started with his pact. And then maybe we can stay. A family … at last.
Azumi and Dash threw each other a worried glance. “Poppy?” Azumi said gently. “Are you all right?”
Poppy blinked. “We need to look around. See if we can find Frederick’s papers.”
Dash stood and pulled the gate shut over the elevator door. The others moved into the art studio.